Giant Squash for Thanksgiving

[Anonymous]

I'm cooking Thanksgiving for 16 this year. Half are vegetarians. I'm a crazy, make everything from scratch, fancy recipe type cook. (I mention, as often the goal is the easiest way to do something, and that isn't a priority. Thanksgiving is the one time I have tons of help in the kitchen and give myself the time to really have fun trying out new things and really involved recipes) Everything except the turkey and stuffing will be vegetarian friendly. I really want to create one dish that rivals the turkey in presentation.

My thought: Buy a giant pumpkin or gourd and use it to serve the roasted vegetable dish. Does anyone have any suggestions on the type of squash/gourd/pumpkin to do this with? How would you cook it so it still holds its shape but isn't just a raw squash?

[Anonymous]

The Washington Post just had an article on stuffed squash that looked really good. You should look for that - they mentioned the type she used and had fairly detailed instructions.

[Anonymous]

http://doriegreenspan.com/2008/09/pumpkin-packed-with-bread-and-cheese-a-recipe-in-progress.html

I haven't tried this but have been considering a variation of it. (It sounds too heavy with cheese and bread and no additional veggie. filling.)

[Anonymous]

Thanks! Those two recipes are huge help. Seems like the main issue is since I'm only stuffing with roasted vegetables, there may be structural issues. I'm going to give it a try, however, worse comes to worst, I'll just have the vegetables on their own!

[Anonymous]

Rather than stuffing it with only roasted vegetables, why not give it something that will add more structural integrity? Wild Rice, nuts, seitan, something like that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Rather than stuffing it with only roasted vegetables, why not give it something that will add more structural integrity? Wild Rice, nuts, seitan, something like that?

I was thinking about seitan or tempe, so that the vegetarians had something more protein heavy, but the vegetarians are mostly soy averse. The wild rice is a really good idea, but I don't want to use a ton. My other side dishes have more added fat (sweet potatoes with butter and a green bean dish with homemade mushroom cream, so this dish was meant for the low fat contingent (both carnivores and vegetarians)

I just found two really pretty squash, one acorn and one sugar. They are small compared to a pumpkin, so I think I can stuff them and use that to add drama to the plate, while not taking a huge structural risk since they are smaller than one big squash. I'lll surround them with whatever roasted vegetable doesn't fit, use extra rosemary to garnish....I think that will work!